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March 2000
Ed Liebow, Contributing Editor
This month's column features a brief
overview of international discussions on biotechnology that grew out of
the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity. From my perspective,
the current discussion represents another key opportunity for anthropologists
to bring their experience to bear on real-world environmental management
problems. Also, here are two important reminders:
Call For Papers: Please contact
Krista Harper (U Mass-Amherst / kharper@anthro.umass.edu or 413/545-0696)
about submitting proposals for invited sessions, panels, or workshops addressing
the theme of the 2000 annual meeting, The Public Face of Anthropology.
Events that bring together participants from academic, policy, and activist
settings are especially encouraged.
Student Paper Competition: May
1 is the deadline for submissions to the Third Annual Rappaport Prize ($500)
for student papers. Students interested in submitting manuscripts for this
year's competition should follow the style guidelines of Human Ecology
and send three copies to Section President Pete Brosius (Georgia).
The Biosafety Protocol Talks, Montreal
(January 2000)
Lost in the ruckus that swirled around
Seattle when the World Trade organization met in December were some substantive
issues concerning possible health and ecological risks of biotech food
crops. Proponents of genetically engineered food crops point to the promise
and benefits to humanity of scientific advancement. This technology holds
the potential, for many parts of the world, to help eliminate famine with
higher-yield, more resilient crops, proponents argue. The possible
hazards, of course, have to do with untested safeguards, and
with fundamentally altered local institutional arrangements needed
to accommodate the intellectual property embodied in these engineered crops.
Whether you regard distribution systems
or production yields as more important to food security, even at home in
North America, many communities and land grant universities where you live
and work are being transformed by biotechnology and its applications. And
no matter what you think about the intellectual property
argument, last year half of the American soybean crop and one-third
of the corn had genes introduced to resist herbicides or insects. Industry
officials expect 90 percent of U.S. agricultural exports to be biogenetic
within a decade.
Talks on biotechnology went nowhere
in Seattle last December. As this column was going to press at the
end of January, delegates from more than 130 countries took up these issues
in Montreal to try to break an impasse that had solidified a year earlier
in Cartagena, Colombia. The Cartagena talks, in turn, had grown out
of the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity. (However, since the US
Senate never approved that convention, the United States does not vote,
and must rely on its allies — Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile and Uruguay
— to speak for it in the formal meetings.) In Cartagena, these big grain-exporting
nations rejected a proposal that would have required exporters of genetically
modified corn, soybeans and other crops to obtain permission in advance
from the importing country.
Initially, the rationale for the proposed
biosafety treaty was that genetically modified plants, animals or micro-organisms
could displace or endanger native crops or microbes. But the talks have
moved well beyond conservation of biodiversity. The heart of the proposed
treaty is a requirement that exporters of "living modified organisms" notify
the importing nation in advance, giving that nation a chance to reject
the shipment.
US officials, while not opposing a treaty
in principle, say the proposals being considered would snag agricultural
trade in red tape and endanger billions of dollars in American farm exports.
US officials argue that such a requirement is appropriate for bioengineered
seeds, bacteria or animals that are released into the
environment, but NOT for commodities like wheat and corn that are eaten
or processed, since they are not released into the environment. Genetically
modified and unmodified grains are now often intermixed in shipments, adding
to transportation costs for tracking crops from the field to the docks.
But European and developing countries that support the Biosafety Protocol
say that concerns about high costs are exaggerated and that agricultural
commodities should be included because they contain seeds that can be planted
or can escape into the environment.
US officials also say they worry that
the biosafety rules will be a front for trade barriers, and want to make
sure the treaty does not take precedence over World Trade Organization
rules. Under World Trade Organization rules, a nation must base a decision
to bar imports of a product on scientific evidence. But biosafety treaty
proponents want to allow such decisions to be based on reasonable concerns,
even in the absence of hard evidence.
Public perceptions of environmental,
health and safety hazards, intellectual property rights of seed producers,
reduction of chemical inputs and non-point source runoff while achieving
higher yields and fulfilling the promise of sustained food security ? the
intersection of these substantive issues is for many of you just where
your work falls. We will continue to follow the biosafety protocol
in the months to come. We will also encourage ecological anthropologists
with an interest in this area to think about forming a working group within
the Section to gain some leverage in influencing the shape of national,
indeed international policy that is still in its formative stages.
For more information about the Montreal
negotiations, look to the main site for the Convention on Biodiversity
(www.biodiv.org), and for a World Wildlife Fund critique of the World Trade
Organization's
Committee on Trade and Environment, see
(www.panda.org/resources/publications/sustainability/wto/trade.htm).
This column will welcome further serious discussion on this issue as space
permits.
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Send your Section news items to Ed Liebow (liebow@policycenter.com,
206/675-1002; fax: 206/675-1005).
And check the award-winning Anthropology/Environment web site regularly:
http://travel.to/anthenv